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"My favorite subject is science"

At Malaa Primary school, we meet a bubbly young girl. She is 12 years old and in class 8. Her school is a public mixed day primary school located in Mbooni Sub County in Makueni County, Kenya. It has a total population of 361 pupils, 9 teachers and 2 subordinate staff. Their school tank was built courtesy of Kithuani Self-help group and was completed on 15th December 2015.

“I

No longer carry water to school since we already have a water tank. Before the tank was constructed, we used carry water to school daily. Failure to do so resulted in severe punishment by our teachers. We only depended on a spring and that was always congested all the time because it was shared by the whole village around here. Sometimes, we would be ejected from class to go fetch water. This interrupted our studies and led to poor performance by most of us. One time, my friend Mutheu Mwikali (Female) had stomach aches from drinking dirty water and she failed to attend school for several days.”

Science is my favourite subject because we are taught very well by our teacher Mr. Mutua. The most interesting thing I have learnt in school is playing football. When am not in school, my favourite thing to do is reading story books and my favourite story book is bull fight because it talks about the importance of education.

My Fathers’ name is Alex Muthoka. He is a chauffeur in Nairobi. My Mother’s name is Felisters Mutinda and she is a house wife. I have two brothers and two sisters and I love them all equally. My favourite colour is purple and my favourite food is Githeri (maize and beans) because it gives me carbohydrates. My friends and I like reading and revising mathematics when we are free. I am weak in mathematics and they help me and I help them in science.

I live with my grandmother less than 10 minutes away from school. My mums lives in Tututha village but there’s no school near that village that’s why I live with my grandmother who is a matron at Malaa Secondary school. My mum stays with my other young siblings. I am the first born.

When I wake up in the morning, I sweep the compound, prepare breakfast, take a shower, take breakfast, brush my teeth, comb my hair and run to school. I always wake up at 5am. After school, I go collect firewood then cook and study thereafter then go to bed 10 pm. I cook for my three uncles. They are all students at Malaa secondary school. When I graduate from primary school, I’d like to join Pangani girl’s secondary school in Nairobi. I would love to be an architect when I grow up because I have been inspired by one of our neighbours, a successful Architect.

I help fetch water over the weekends from a borehole near my grandmother’s home. I carry a 10 litre jerry can on my back. My uncles fetch water over the weekdays.

Given an opportunity, I would like to live in Algeria because of the conducive climate there.

Now that we have water at school, our lessons are never interrupted. We now have access to clean water all year round. We can now plant trees and flowers in our school compound. The good thing about having access to clean drinking water is that water borne diseases have gone down. We now wash hand after visiting the toilets. I have started performing well in class after getting access to clean water at school. I used to score an average of 330/500 marks in my last year’s exam and now I have improved to 350/500 marks. This is because I have freedom to read without interruptions. All My friends are happy because of having clean water at the school. None of us liked carrying water to school all the time or being asked to leave class to go fetch water before the tank was constructed.

The most interesting thing I learnt from the sanitation training is to always practice proper hygienic practices like washing hands after visiting the toilets, drinking clean and boiled water and washing our toilets. My message to other pupils who might not have been trained is they should always drink clean water, boiled or filtered and wash their hands after visiting the toilet.

I shared the hygiene training messages with my family members especially about the importance of boiling drinking water and that they should always wash their hands after visiting the toilets.

I am excited by not having to queue for water at the congested spring. My grades are now improving. We don’t have a health club in our school but we have elected school cabinet ministers. I am the Minister for ICT my health counterpart is Sabina Mwende.”

"Science is my favorite subject because we are taught very well by our teacher Mr. Mutua. The most interesting thing I have learnt in school is playing football. When am not in school, my favorite thing to do is reading story books and my favorite story book is bull fight because it talks about the importance of education."